Gabriela Quirós

Gabriela Quirós is a TV Producer for KQED Science & Environment. She started her journalism career in 1993 as a newspaper reporter in Costa Rica, where she grew up. She won two national reporting awards there for series on C-sections and organic agriculture, and developed a life-long interest in health reporting. She moved to the Bay Area in 1996 to study documentary filmmaking at the University of California-Berkeley, where she received master’s degrees in journalism and Latin American studies. She joined KQED as a TV producer when QUEST started in 2006 and has covered everything from Alzheimer’s to bee die-offs to dark energy. She has shared two regional Emmys, and four of her stories have been nominated for the award as well. Independent from her work on QUEST, she produced and directed the hour-long documentary Beautiful Sin for PBS, about the surprising story of how Costa Rica became the only country in the world to outlaw in-vitro fertilization.

Gabriela Quirós's Latest Posts

California’s Napa Valley has a microclimate that produces world-famous wines, but what happens as the climate warms up? Vintners are using advanced technology to conserve water, while scientists are testing varieties that could replace the cool-climate Pinot Noirs of today.

Former astronaut Millie Hughes-Fulford is sending an experiment into space that could one day help travelers going to Mars and aging people here on Earth. She seeks to understand how a lack of gravity impacts our immune system.

Shark fin soup was once served at celebratory banquets in Chinese restaurants across California. But since a ban on shark fins went into effect in 2013, restaurants like Koi Palace, in Daly City, have been experimenting with alternatives.

Do other planets like Earth exist? Since it launched in 2009, NASA’s Kepler space observatory has revealed billions of Earth-size planets. Now scientists are looking for signs of water on these planets. Watch a video and read about their search.

Santa Barbara, Mendocino and San Benito counties will vote on hydraulic fracturing this November. San Benito activists were the first to qualify a ballot initiative to ban the controversial oil- and gas-extraction technique.

Are the benefits of genetically engineered foods worth the risks? This half-hour QUEST Northern California special explores the pros and cons of genetically engineered crops, and what the future holds for research and regulations.

Their basic design hasn’t changed much, but scientists still don’t fully understand the forces that allow humans to balance atop a bicycle. QUEST visits Davis – a city that loves its bicycles – to take a ride on a research bike and explore a collection of antique bicycles.

One in six kids in the United States is obese, a condition that doubles their risk of heart disease. Lorena Ramos, 14, a patient at the Healthy Hearts clinic at Children's Hospital Oakland struggles to lose weight. Will she succeed?

This half-hour program looks at heart disease – the number one killer in the United States – from the point of view of a teenager trying to lower her risk, a heart attack survivor, and a scientist working to rebuild damaged hearts.

Scientists in San Francisco have coaxed mouse hearts to repair themselves from within.The breakthrough could lead to treatments for 5 million people in the United States whose hearts were damaged after they survived heart attacks.

Meet one of the three winners of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, Lawrence Berkeley Lab astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter. He explains how dark energy, which makes up 70 percent of the universe, is causing our universe to expand.